Regarding Afghanistan, American Leadership Combines Denial with Stupidity and a Callous Disregard for Blood and Truth

15 March 2012

David Ignatius’ summary of NATO’s strategy in Afghanistan as an illustration of deluded American leadership

The predictable tragedies that the War in Afghanistan brought with it during the last few days have apparently prompted a cursory examination of the United States’ mostly non-existent strategy there.

Politically influential columnist David Ignatius (approvingly) synopsized this most recent bit of American strategic delusion:

As in Iraq, the U.S. hopes to create conditions that can contain the disorder. That may sound like a fool’s errand, given Afghanistan’s bloody history, but it’s based on some sensible ideas:

Build a good enough Afghan army to hold Kabul and maintain contact with the provinces;

negotiate political power-sharing with the Taliban that can avert civil war;

and

work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to build a firewall that can keep the inevitable violence there from destabilizing the region.

Meaning that — when the facts are against you, pretend they’re not there

The named strategy would be workable, if Reality were significantly different than it is.

The American plan is an example of how people steeped in Denial allow Denial’s redistribution of inconvenient facts to further derange action.

“So Pete, what’s wrong with American strategy as Mr. Ignatius accurately summarized it?”

Not one of the disengagement strategy’s three elements accords with the American experience in Afghanistan, or with any of our predecessors’.

Element One — “build a good enough Afghan army”

This is the same army that still cannot be trusted not to shoot Americans or to reliably act like an extension of competent government into the provinces.

Evidence for this assertion is everywhere. It was most recently summarized by U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis.

Citation

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, Truth, lies and Afghanistan, Armed Forces Journal (February 2012)

A browser search easily turns up corroborating sources.

When the problem is disloyalty and significantly different cultural perspectives, one can “train” people out the wazoo and nothing is going to change.

The problem with the Afghan Army is not its alleged lack of courage — Afghanistan’s history puts the lie to that fabrication — but its non-Western packet of personal and social values. In essence, to create a Western style Afghan Army would require acculturating Afghanis to a Western model that most of them disrespect.

Training a “good enough Afghan army” is not going to work, now or 10 years from now. The problem is not technical skill. It is quasi-tribal and cultural outlook.

Element Two — “negotiate . . . power sharing with the Taliban”

This second clutching-at-straws proposal fails on the similar social grounds.

The Taliban may reach an agreement with NATO for purely tactical reasons. But once NATO is gone, this motivated coalition of Islamic fundamentalists is going to go back to doing what it set out to do.

Religious motivation is arguably the most difficult to persuade against.

Why would anyone think that the Taliban’s spiritual and political ferocity is going to be tempered by a military opponent that this part of the world has more or less successfully culturally held off for more than 10 years?

The successful long-term pursuit of Element Two, except as a face-saving exit strategy, is hog-wash.

Element Three — “work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to build a firewall”

A combination of culture, tribalism, and national gamesmanship is the indefatigable enemy here, too.

This third element is almost incomprehensibly obtuse. And it again points to America’s arrogantly held insistence that it is so powerful that it can ignore the historical and cultural realities that define the world

For example, American leadership has long been complaining about Pakistan’s intransigent two-faced game. Support America with one hand, and defeat it by fostering unrest in Afghanistan with the other.

So, why would Pakistan (or any other nearby nation) change its self-interested perspective in order to accord with the United States’ incompatible one over the long haul? Pakistan is going to go back, full-tilt, to doing what it does in Afghanistan, just as soon as the United States has left. So will everyone else.

“But, Pete, isn’t this impoverished strategy the best thing we have left?”

No. It is simply going to kill more of our own troops in return for a postponed and no better outcome.

When a situation is realistically trashed, it is better to call it so and leave, while preserving as many lives as one can.

The end goal in Afghanistan should be a tactically astute, troops-preserving retreat home. It is not as if we cannot defend ourselves from terrorists here and by extending very limited military missions abroad.

Aiming for an unachievable result in Afghanistan only continues to prove how geopolitically stupid, self-interestedly cynical, callous, and hypocritical our leaders are.

The price of continuing to stall withdrawal

The price of continuing to stall the end of our occupation in Afghanistan is illustrated by Dana Milbank’s implied rebuttal to David Ignatius:

Citation

Dana Milbank, In Section 60, a silent search for meaning, Washington Post (13 March 2012)

“Section 60” is a location in Arlington National Cemetery. It is where many of our Iraq and Afghanistan war dead are buried.

Milbank wrote, “[N]o policymaker should make a decision about the war without strolling through Section 60.”

The success of Milbank’s walk-through solution requires that our mostly self-serving policymakers understand the concept of ethical proportion. The historical evidence is that they do not.

I suspect, instead, that a simple stroll in Section 60 would most likely result in more patriot bull-plop from our political leaders. More speeches about the need for stalwart heroism in the face of their deliberately inculcated, excessively hyped fear.

It is as easy to misuse the military’s dead as it was to unnecessarily hazard them in life.

The moral? — When the plan does not fit the facts, it is worse than useless

The Afghanistan War has been a sad confirmation of humanity’s penchant for brutalizing stupidity.

It is time to recognize our clay feet, abandon hubris, and stop making noble-sounding, but irrelevant, excuses for continuing our presence there.

The geopolitical outcome in Afghanistan is going to be the same, whether we go now or later. If we go now, more of our people will be alive, and our unavoidably bloody fingerprints will be on fewer innocents.

Most times — after making grievous errors in judgment — an efficient retreat from further harm is all that we can ask and achieve.

The honor of the fallen will remain intact because they served as ambassadors of the duty-courage-sacrifice concept that our leaders, and much of our public, have completely violated in their pursuit of personal greeds of various kinds.

The spirit of “semper fidelis,” and its colleague armed services parallels, are wasted on an American leadership comprised of murderously ambitious influence-peddlers.

At least in Arlington’s Section 60 the fallen are among their own again.

The stillness there speaks to those who would listen.

PeteFree.com

Regarding Afghanistan, American Leadership Combines Denial with Stupidity and a Callous Disregard for Blood and Truth